June 12, Readers may remember the id example of "socialism in our time" giver by the Board of Guardians of West Ham, They went on the principle that unemployed persons are entitled to full maintenance by the Scate unti! they are at work again. They spent and borrowed with utter recklessness. AS one. writer has put it, they made life in West Ham a holiday for the careless, the improvident and the never-do-well, Their wasteful ness and the complaints of the self-respecting people in the borough became so conspicuous, that in July, 1926, the Ministry of Health intervened, suspended the Guardians, and appointed Board of their own to take charge of the local administr tion of the Poor Law. Recet papers fron® home contain the latest report by Sir Alfred Woougate, chairman of the appointed Guardians, on what has been done to reduce expenditure to reasonable limits, During the last full year of its lite, the old Board spent £2,345,900: by the end of April in this year, this sum had been reduced by mors than half.—Besides levying a Poor Rate of nine-shillings-and-fourpence in the pouml. the old Guardians borrowed from Ministry of Health in their inst year £630,000, of which they squandered £450,000, on current expenses. The appointed Gi us, besides saving' the paying the Ministr £302,000 annually out of current, revenue in respect of loans contracted by the old us.
Even more striking has been the reduction of unemployment. In July, 1926, there were in West Ham 15,700 unemployed men and women in receipt of outdone relief. For the last week in April of the present year the number had been reduced to 1,203. Sir Alized comments pungently on suggestions he has noticed for dealing with unemployment, the one being full maintenance at public expense for persons out of work, the other, that work must ganized for the unemployed by the Star Alfred says: Ham we have been ing, and are stil steugg! ious effect of full tance for the unemployed, Day by day we are up against cases of men who, 22, gave up to secure the and have done! and, indeed, have got when they are really unemployable without training. This training we supply by putting them on a course of test work.
As for the State finding work for those who cannot find work for themselves the experience of the appointed Guardians of West: Ham is that this means that men cease to look for work, relying upon the Guardians to provide it for them on all occasions. In 1926, we are told, relief in West Tam to the unemployed was
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.